Selecting

Many commands in Amaya act on the current selection. The current selection can be changed in different ways.

Selecting with the mouse

As usual, you can click with the left mouse button for moving the insertion point.

To select some text, drag a region - move the mouse with the left button pressed down and release it when the desired part is selected.

You can also extend the selection by clicking with the left button combined with the Shift key.

You can select a whole element, such as a list item by clicking on its bullet or its number.

Selecting with the arrow keys

The four arrow keys on the keyboard move the insertion point in the four directions. If there is no visible selection in that document, up and down arrows allow you to scroll the document one line up or one line down.

Whatever the way you change the current selection, the type of the first selected element is displayed at the bottom of the window. It is followed by the types of the enclosing elements in the structure. This may be helpful when the document structure is complex.

Selecting by Structure

The structure view is especially convenient for quickly selecting large elements. Just click on the blue label that represents the element, or on the name of any of its attributes, or even on its blue vertical line. A large element like a complex table or a long list can be selected with a single click.

Clicking on a black character in the Structure view selects only that character.

A bold text in the structure view represents the value of an attribute that can be edited directly from the keyboard. A selection in such an attribute value cannot be extended outside the attribute.

It is also possible to use the Keyboard for selecting by structure in any view. Pressing the Esc (F2 on Windows) key selects the parent element in the document structure. Pressing the Esc (F2 on Windows) key several times allows you to select containers (and everything in them) up the structure the structure towards the root. It is also possible to select child elements: the default shortcut key is ctrl-minus ("-"). To select the next or previous element at the same level (or at the level of the parent element if there is no next/previous child of the current parent) use control-k (for next) and control-j (for previous).

Selecting images

If you click on the left hand part of an image, the insertion point is moved to the left edge of that image. This allows you to type text before the image. If you click on the right hand part of an image, the insertion point is moved to the right side of that image. This allows you to type text after the image.

When using the arrow keys to move, the cursor will move from one side of the image to the image itself (selecting it)and then to the other side

If you want to select the whole image, click anywhere within the image and move a bit with the button pressed down. Do not leave the image before releasing the button. The whole image is then selected. You can use the copy, cut and paste commands to move or duplicate the image element along with all its attributes.